🏆 Fall 2023 Share Drive

The quarterly review of posts.

Somehow, it’s October. What?!? The heat is coming on. It’s a sauna in our building in the night, and I need to get the air conditioners out of the windows this weekend.

Here are the posts for the last quarter. Find one that you liked and share or restack ! If you’re a Substacker, the restacks with quotes pulled out are the best, because I’ll go, “Oh, that’s the line they liked the best!” or I’ll go, “That’s the line they liked the best?” Or I’ll go, “And they saw every thing that I have made, and, behold, it was good.”

Note: you’ll need to click through on the selection to get to the post and then share from there. Or, if you’re truly inspired, you can just share this entire page.

🏆 The Favorites

By views and engagement, it was these three. The first two are part of a larger work, 365, a collection of writings from 2010-2011. The third was an acknowledgement of

Chloe Hope

that turned into a happy karmic brushfire, a rush of unanticipated subscribers and an excess of goodwill for me.

Threshold – I

The Watchmaker - I

Death & Birds: Chloe Hope

The 4th Pip

A story! Dancing! Singing! The Learning Annex! The Pips! I will miss my mornings writing them, blasting the week’s relevant Gladys Knight & The Pips song into my headphones on an endless loop.

The 4th Pip: “Midnight Train to Georgia” - Part I

The 4th Pip: The Columbia House Record Club — Part II

The 4th Pip: The Early Years — Part III

The 4th Pip: The Whips* — Part IV

The 4th Pip: The Bulldog — Part V

The 4th Pip: Whiplash* — Part VI

The 4th Pip: Ronnie – Part VII

The Watchmaker

A journey in time. Maybe “the” journey in time.

The Watchmaker - I

The Watchmaker - II

🌎 365

Yes, it’s all over the place. Yes, it needs a team of editors with a typewriter-powered dump truck. Quibbles! For all that, there are special bits and bobs in here.

These posts comprised the introductory section to a writing project that started and finished (by its own idiosyncratic regulations) on the first and last day of a sabbatical year in France. Also… publishing “as is” was a core element in the compact of writing it, so don’t back up that typewriter-powered dump truck too quickly. Please see the “The Stranger Across the Aisle —V” for my rules.

The Stranger Across the Aisle – I

The Stranger Across the Aisle - II

The Stranger Across the Aisle – III

The Stranger Across the Aisle - IV

The Stranger Across the Aisle - V

There have been three Thresholds posted now, the first true section of 365. Only the first one published under the Q3 bell, but I’m including them all for context. Two to come after these, and we say goodbye to the age of seven forever. Those of you wondering where this is going, it is going somewhere specific, and not just to eight years old.

Threshold – I

Threshold - II

Threshold - III

🎬 The Actor

From 1984 to 1993 I worked in one way or another in the film business, starting as an actor, working through film school, then running a small company in Hollywood with a fellow grad student. I’m taking time to think through the complexity of it. Very high highs. Very low lows. Would I do it again? I don’t know. Maybe that’s what I’m trying to figure out. I’ll be at this one for a bit. Next week, I’m covering the one and only time I was an extra which was a blast and not at all what I expected.

Actor: The Bet

Actor: The Christmas Carol

Actor: The Headshot

💸 Ask Tip!

My alter-ego, Tippi Pointier, and her advice column guide on navigating the new tipping economy. Huge guest-starring role from my brother

Chris Nathan

in “Winning Submission” below. He still hasn’t given me his Venmo, nor have I received the $1.16 on my Tippin account that would make an honest advice columnist of me. See also

FORD KNOWS

for an honorable mention in Comments Participation.

I scared everyone away with French in the last one and my liberal use of ChatGPT. My shout out to “Claire H. A. Thibault of Grande-Plage-sur-Tourbelle” might have been a little too cryptic.

🏆🏆🏆 Ask Tip! — Winning Submission

💸 Ask Tip! — "Daybreak in Daytona"

💸 Ask Tip! — "Speechless in Spokane"

And…

Final thoughts on the passing of Sinéad O’Connor.

Sinéad O’Connor: "Everywhere Is War"

There is certainly a lot of content here when I look back on it. I do keep everyone busy Wednesdays and Saturdays. Some ongoing concern about the Saturday posts as they seem to have a significant dip from Wednesday.

Thank you all for reading, particularly fellow Substackers for your support on both the artistic and personal front, and, in so doing, encouraging me to be brave in what I share.

My finger often hovers over the send it button, remembers you your own brave posts, thinks “oh-fuck-it,” and presses, “Publish.”